Thoughts on Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai’s a wild clash of contradictions
A vibrant city with modern swagger that rams into old traditions like a tuk-tuk in rush hour. You will see nightclubs packed with scantily clad women next to monasteries where monks practice austerity. I’ve been to plenty of Asian cities, to me Chiang Mai’s got the most random & diverse expat crowd out there.
Here’s my take on Chiang Mai after crashing here for over a month—some impressions and stories from the chaos.
Culture
Chiang Mai’s got this fortified-city past with moats to fend off invaders. You can still see bits of the remnants standing still. Tourists can grab a plate of pad thai by the old city walls, almost like eating a postcard…
Groceries
The local markets are where you can buy cheap, fresh Chiang Mai avocados straight from the mountains. They taste different from Australian ones, but I think they have the same potassium kick.
Vibe
This place is buzzing with entrepreneurial weirdos and creative types. You can order gluten-free bread and açai bowls on the Grab app, only to find out some European mindful-eating teenagers owns the joint. :P
It’s a mash-up of rice fields, sleepy villages, tech startups, and Web3 crypto bros. I snicker overhearing dudes debate on Hayek or why Bitcoin beats gold.
Tales in the Mountain
During my month here, I spent two weeks at Tiger Muay Thai camp. Beyond the daily boxing sessions that left me half-dead, I am constantly energised on stories from my roommates that dragged them to Chiang Mai:
Handsome but Grumpy Y from Germany
Y’s from Berlin where he crunched numbers at a bank that sounds like “douchebag” (lol). After a messy divorce, he said “auf wiedersehen” to his ex-wife, his job, and even his dog and bolted to Asia as a freelancer. Now he runs a restaurant in Chiang Mai, and occasionally whipping healthy granola for 150 baht a pop to us exhausted Muay Thai grunts 😂
He is all about that crypto life, self-custodying his digital coins like a modern-day pirate and occasionally hopping on Dogecoin whenever Elon Musk tweets some meme. He is beyond happy for his life here, having ditched Europe’s boring, by-the-book life for something with more spice. For him, German sausages—pork with pepper is meh—can’t touch Chiang Mai’s Sai Ua, packed with lemongrass, kaffir lime, and chili that hits like a real Muay Thai kick.
I love chilling with Y and his German no-BS attitude. He’s raging about fluoride in toothpaste (and use coconut oil to clean…) and swears deodorant’s out to wreck your lymph nodes. I lose it when he cracks rude jokes, but he’s got a point: the supermarket’s “options” are a curated ones. It has no harm thinking beyond the rack.
“Gianna,” he said, “my old life sucked. Work, crazy taxes, hitting the bar every Thursday, and fighting my ex over socks in the living room. Eight years of that, and I said screw it. I want somewhere cheap, sunny, and where I can train every day and start my own business.” I was gasping from a two-hour Muay Thai session and wheezed, “Dude, you’re living your dream now.”
High-Flying Software developer P
Then there’s P, an IIT grad who moved to San Francisco and became a software developer. He dragged himself to Chiang Mai because his marriage is crumbling faster than his software update… His wife’s is a big-shot lobbyist, fighting for palm oil interests and bringing that same scrappy energy to every detail of their life. She’s always in Europe, so they’re stuck in long-distance hell, fighting over who’s cheating when they’re not even in the same country.
Feeling like a punching bag in that mess, P turned his emotions into stress-eating, which is why he’s now battling the scale. At some point P finally snapped, took a month-long leave to hit pause, train hard, shed some pounds, and wanting to figure out if his marriage is worth saving.
As everyone I know from IIT, P is very sharp and don’t trade his stories for nothing. P was curious about my Chiang Mai story, saying folks come to Thailand to seek or to hide. “So, G, you seeking or hiding?” he asked.
Up to today, I owe them an answer, but Y’s off wandering Thailand, and P’s probably divorcing his wife (hope they had a prenup). God knows if I’ll see them again. That’s the Chiang Mai magic—people crash into each other for the same reasons, then bounce. Nobody gives a damn about your past, your present, or who you’re trying to become.
It’s just you, the jungle, cheap Wi-Fi keeping you plugged in, cows munching grass carelessly and a bunch of soul-searching pilgrims with heavy stories, all learning “sawadeekhap” the second they hit Thai soil.
That’s the Chiangmai charm. I’m just one of the crowd who seeks or hides, or maybe a rookie playing a game in a “Chiangmai themed” server that vanishes when the plug’s pulled.